1. It is with a
full knowledge of the dangers and passions of the time that I have
ventured to attack this wild and godless heresy, which asserts that the
Son of God is a creature. Multitudes of Churches, in almost every
province of the Roman Empire, have already caught the plague of this
deadly doctrine; error, persistently inculcated and falsely claiming to
be the truth, has become ingrained in minds which vainly imagine that
they are loyal to the faith. I know how hardly the will is moved
to a thorough recantation, when zeal for a mistaken cause is encouraged
by the sense of numbers and confirmed by the sanction of general
approval. A multitude under delusion can only be approached with
difficulty and danger. When the crowd has gone astray, even
though it know that it is in the wrong, it is ashamed to return.
It claims consideration for its numbers, and has the assurance to
command that its folly shall be accounted wisdom. It assumes that
its size is evidence of the correctness of its opinions; and thus a
falsehood which has found general credence is boldly asserted to have
established its truth.

2. For my own part, it was not only the
claim which my vocation has upon me, the duty of diligently preaching
the Gospel which, as a bishop, I owe to the Church, that has led me
on. My eagerness to write has increased with the increasing
numbers endangered and enthralled by this heretical theory. There
was a rich prospect of joy in the thought of multitudes who might be
saved, if they could know the mysteries of the right faith in God, and
abandon the blasphemous principles of human folly, desert the heretics
and surrender themselves to God; if they would forsake the bait with
which the fowler snares his prey, and soar aloft in freedom and safety,
following Christ as Leader, prophets as instructors, apostles as
guides, and accepting the perfect faith and sure salvation in the
confession of Father and of Son. So would they, in obedience to
the words of the Lord, He that honoureth not the Son honoureth not
the Father which hath sent Him774774 St. John v. 23., be setting
themselves to honour the Father, through honour paid to the
Son.

3. For of late the infection of a mortal evil has
gone abroad among mankind, whose ravages have dealt destruction and
death on every hand. The sudden desolation of cities smitten,
with their people in them, by earthquake to the ground, the terrible
slaughter of recurring wars, the widespread mortality of an
irresistible pestilence, have never wrought such fatal mischief as the
progress of this heresy throughout the world. For God, unto Whom
all the dead live, destroys those only who are self-destroyed.
From Him Who is to be the Judge of all, Whose Majesty will temper with
mercy the punishment allotted to the mistakes of ignorance, they who
deny Him can expect not even judgment, but only denial.

4. For this mad heresy does deny; it denies
the mystery of the true faith by means of statements borrowed from our
confession, which it employs for its own godless ends. The
confession of their misbelief, which I have already cited in an earlier
book, begins thus:—”We confess one God, alone unmade, alone
eternal, alone unoriginate, alone true, alone possessing immortality,
alone good, alone mighty.” Thus they parade the opening
words of our own confession, which runs, “One God, alone unmade
and alone un-originate,” that this semblance of truth may serve
as introduction to their blasphemous additions. For, after a
multitude of words in which an equally insincere devotion to the Son is
expressed, their confession continues, “God’s perfect
creature, but not as one of His other creatures, His Handiwork, but not
as His other works.” And again, after an interval in which
true statements are occasionally interspersed in order to veil their
impious purpose of alleging, as by sophistry they try to prove, that He
came into existence out of nothing, they add, “He, created and
established before the worlds, did not exist before He was
born.” And lastly, as though every point of their false
doctrine, that He is to be regarded neither as Son nor as God, were
guarded impregnably against assault, they continue:—“As to
such phrases as from Him, and from the womb, and I went out from the
Father and am come, if they be understood to denote that the Father
ex99tends a part and, as
it were, a development of that one substance, then the Father will be
of a compound nature and divisible and changeable and corporeal,
according to them; and thus, as far as their words go, the incorporeal
God will be subjected to the properties of matter.” But, as
we are now about to cover the whole ground once more, employing this
time the language of the Gospels as our weapon against this most
godless heresy, it has seemed best to repeat here, in the sixth book,
the whole heretical document, though we have already given a full copy
of it in the fourth775775 Reading
quarto instead of primo; but cf. v. § 3., in order that
our opponents may read it again, and compare it, point by point, with
our reply, and so be forced, however reluctant and argumentative, by
the clear teaching of the Evangelists and Apostles, to recognise the
truth. The heretical confession is as follows:—

5. “We confess one God, alone unmade, alone
eternal, alone unoriginate, alone possessing immortality, alone good,
alone mighty, Creator, Ordainer and Disposer of all things,
unchangeable and unalterable, righteous and good, of the Law and the
Prophets and the New Testament. We believe that this God gave
birth to the Only-begotten Son before all worlds, through Whom He made
the world and all things, that He gave birth to Him not in semblance,
but in truth, following His own will, so that He is unchangeable and
unalterable, God’s perfect Creature, but not as one of His other
creatures, His Handiwork, but not as His other works; not, as
Valentinus maintained, that the Son is a development of the Father,
nor, as Manichæus has declared of the Son, a consubstantial part
of the Father, nor, as Sabellius, who makes two out of One, Son and
Father at once, nor, as Hieracas, a light from a light, or a lamp with
two flames, nor, as if He was previously in being and afterwards born,
or created afresh, to be a Son, a notion often condemned by thyself,
blessed Pope, publicly in the Church, and in the assembly of the
brethren. But, as we have affirmed, we believe that He was
created by the will of God before times and worlds, and has His life
and existence from the Father, Who gave Him to share His own glorious
perfections. For, when the Father gave to Him the inheritance of
all things, He did not thereby deprive Himself of attributes which are
His without origination, He being the source of all things.

6. “So there are three Persons,
Father, Son and Holy Ghost. God, for His part, is the Cause of
all things, utterly unoriginate and separate from all; while the Son,
put forth by the Father outside time, and created and established
before the worlds, did not exist before He was born, but, being born
outside time before the worlds, came into being as the Only Son of the
Only Father. For He is neither eternal, nor co-eternal, nor
co-uncreate with the Father, nor has He an existence collateral with
the Father, as some say who postulate two unborn principles. But
God is before all things, as being indivisible and the beginning of
all. Wherefore He is before the Son also, as indeed we have
learnt from thee in thy public preaching. Inasmuch then as He has
His being from God, and His glorious perfections, and His life, and is
entrusted with all things, for this reason God is His Source. For
He rules over Him, as being His God, since He is before Him. As
to such phrases as from Him, and from the womb, and I
went out from the Father and am come, if they be understood to
denote that the Father extends a part and, as it were, a development of
that one Substance, then the Father will be of a compound nature and
divisible and changeable and corporeal, according to them; and thus, as
far as their words go, the incorporeal God will be subjected to the
properties of matter776776 The
Epistola Arii ad Alexandrum, repeated from Book iv. §§
12, 13, where see the notes. The only difference in the text is
that this copy omits alone true, at the beginning..”

7. Who can fail to see here the slimy windings of
the serpent’s track: the coiled adder, with forces
concentrated for the spring, concealing the deadly weapon of its
poisonous fangs within its folds? Presently we shall stretch it
out and examine it, and expose the venom of this hidden head. For
their plan is first to impress with certain sound statements, and then
to infuse the poison of their heresy. They speak us fair, in
order to work us secret harm. Yet, amid all their specious
professions, I nowhere hear God’s Son entitled God; I never hear
sonship attributed to the Son. They say much about His having the
name of Son, but nothing about His having the nature. That is
kept out of sight, that He may seem to have no right even to the
name. They make a show of unmasking other heresies to conceal the
fact that they are heretics themselves. They strenuously assert
that there is One only, One true God, to the end that they may strip
the Son of God of His true and personal Divinity.

8. And therefore, although in the two last books I
have proved from the teaching of the Law and Prophets that God and God,
true God and true God, true God the Father 100and true God the Son, must be confessed as One
true God, by unity of nature and not by confusion of Persons, yet, for
the complete presentation of the faith, I must also adduce the teaching
of the Evangelists and Apostles. I must show from them that true
God, the Son of God, is not of a different, an alien nature from that
of the Father, but possesses the same Divinity while having a distinct
existence through a true birth. And, indeed, I cannot think that
any soul exists so witless as to fancy that, although we know
God’s self-revelations, yet we cannot understand them; that, if
they can be understood, would not wish to understand, or would dream
that human reason can devise improvements upon them. But before I
begin to discuss the facts contained in these saving mysteries, I must
first humble the pride with which these heretics rebuke the names of
other heresies. I shall hold up to the light this ingenious cloak
for their own impiety. I shall shew that this very means of
concealing the deadliness of their teaching serves rather to reveal and
betray it, and is a widely effectual warning of the true character of
this honeyed poison.

9. For instance, these heretics would have
it that the Son of God is not from God; that God was not born from God
out of, and in, the nature of God. To this end, when they have
solemnly borne witness to “One God, alone true,” they
refrain from adding “The Father.” And then, in order
to escape from confessing one true Godhead of Father and of Son by a
denial of the true birth, they proceed, “Not, as Valentinus
maintained, that the Son is a development of the Father.”
Thus they think to cast discredit upon the birth of God from God by
calling it a “development,” as though it were a form of the
Valentinian heresy. For Valentinus was the author of foul and
foolish imaginations; beside the chief God, he invented a whole
household of deities and countless powers called æons, and taught
that our Lord Jesus Christ was a development mysteriously brought about
by a secret action of will. The faith of the Church, the faith of
the Evangelists and Apostles, knows nothing of this imaginary
development, sprung from the brain of a reckless and senseless
dreamer. It knows nothing of the “Depth” and
“Silence” and the thrice ten æons of Valentinus.
It knows none but One God the Father, from Whom are all things, and One
Jesus Christ, our Lord, through Whom are all things, Who is God born
from God. But it occurred to them that He, in being born as God
from God, neither withdrew anything from the Divinity of His Author nor
was Himself born other than God; that He became God not by a new
beginning of Deity but by birth from the existing God; and that every
birth appears, as far as human faculties can judge, to be a
development, so that even that birth might be regarded as a
development. And these considerations have induced them to make
an attack upon the Valentinian heresy of development as a means of
destroying faith in the true birth of the Son. For the experience
of common life leads worldly wisdom to suppose that there is no great
difference between a birth and a development. The mind of man,
dull and slow to grasp the things of God, needs to be constantly
reminded of the principle, which I have stated more than once777777 E.g. i.
§ 10, iv. § 2; reading non semel., that analogies drawn from human
experience are not of perfect application to the mysteries of Divine
power; that their only value is that this comparison with material
objects imparts to the spirit such a notion of heavenly things that we
may rise, as by a ladder of nature, to an apprehension of the majesty
of God. But the birth of God must not be judged by such
development as takes place in human births. When One is born from
One, God born from God, the circumstances of human birth enable us to
apprehend the fact; but a birth which presupposes intercourse and
conception and time and travail can give us no clue to the Divine
method. When we are told that God was born from God, we must
accept it as true that He was born, and be content with that. We
shall, however, in the proper place discourse of the truth of the
Divine birth, as the Gospels and the Apostles set it forth. Our
present duty has been to expose this device of heretical ingenuity,
this attack upon the true birth of Christ, concealed under the form of
an attack upon a so-called development.

10. And then, in continuation of this same
fraudulent assault upon the faith, their confession proceeds
thus:—“Nor, as Manichæus has declared of the Son, a
consubstantial part of the Father.” They have already
denied that He is a development, in order to escape from the admission
of His birth; now they introduce, labelled with the name of
Manichæus, the doctrine that the Son is a portion of the one
Divine substance, and deny it, in order to subvert the belief in God
from God. For Manichæus, the furious adversary of the Law
and Prophets, the strenuous champion of the devil’s cause and
blind worshipper of the sun, taught that That which was in the
Virgin’s womb was a portion of the one Divine 101substance, and that by the Son we must
understand a certain piece of God’s substance which was cut off,
and made its appearance in the flesh. And so they make the most
of this heresy that in the birth of the Son there was a division of the
one substance and use it as a means of evading the doctrine of the
birth of the Only-begotten, and the very name of the unity of
substance. Because it is sheer blasphemy to speak of a birth
resulting from division of the one substance they deny any birth; all
forms of birth are joined in the condemnation which they pass upon the
Manichæan notion of birth by severance. And again, they
abolish the unity of substance, both name and thing, because the
heretics hold that the unity is divisible; and deny that the Son is God
from God, by refusing to believe that He is truly possessed of the
Divine nature. Why does this mad heresy profess a fictitious
reverence, a senseless anxiety? The faith of the Church does, as
these insane propounders of error remind us, condemn Manichæus,
for she knows nothing of the Son as a portion. She knows Him as
whole God from whole God, as One from One, not severed but born.
She is assured that the birth of God involves neither impoverishment of
the Begetter nor inferiority of the Begotten. If this be the
Church’s own imagining, reproach her with the follies of a wisdom
falsely claimed; but if she have learned it from her Lord, confess that
the Begotten knows the manner of His begetting. She has learnt
from God the Only-begotten these truths, that Father and Son are One,
and that in the Son the fulness of the Godhead dwells. And
therefore she loathes this attribution to the Son of a portion of the
one substance; and, because she knows that He was truly born of God,
she worships the Son as rightful Possessor of true Divinity. But,
for the present, let us defer our full answer to these several
allegations, and hasten through the rest of their denunciations.

11. What follows is this:—“Nor,
as Sabellius, who makes two out of One, Son and Father at
once.” Sabellius holds this in wilful blindness to the
revelation of the Evangelists and Apostles. But what we see here
is not one heretic honestly denouncing another. It is the wish to
leave no point of union between Father and Son that prompts them to
reproach Sabellius with his division of an indivisible Person; a
division which does not result in the birth of a second Person, but
cuts the One Person into two parts, one of which enters the
Virgin’s womb778778 Reading
virginem.. But we
confess a birth; we reject this confusion of two Persons in One, while
yet we cleave to the Divine unity. That is, we hold that God
from God means unity of nature; for that Being, Who, by a true
birth from God, became God, can draw His substance from no other source
than the Divine. And since He continues to draw His being, as He
drew it at first, from God, He must remain true God for ever; and hence
They Two are One, for He, Who is God from God, has no other than the
Divine nature, and no other than the Divine origin. But the
reason why this blasphemous Sabellian confusion of two Persons into One
is here condemned is that they wish to rob the Church of her true faith
in Two Persons in One God. But now I must examine the remaining
instances of this perverted ingenuity, to save myself from the
reputation of a censorious judge of sincere enquirers, moved rather by
dislike than genuine fear. I shall shew, by the terms with which
they wind up their confession, what is the deadly conclusion which they
have skilfully contrived shall be its inevitable issue.

12. Their next clause is:—“Nor, as
Hieracas, a light from a light, or a lamp with two flames, nor as if He
was previously in being, and afterwards born, or created afresh, to be
a Son.” Hieracas ignores the birth of the Only-begotten,
and, in complete unconsciousness of the meaning of the Gospel
revelations, talks of two flames from one lamp. This symmetrical
pair of flames, fed by the supply of oil contained in one bowl, is His
illustration of the substance of Father and Son. It is as though
that substance were something separate from Either Person, like the oil
in the lamp, which is distinct from the two flames, though they depend
upon it for their existence; or like the wick, of one material
throughout and burning at both ends, which is distinct from the flames,
yet provides them and connects them together. All this is a mere
delusion of human folly, which has trusted to itself, and not to God,
for knowledge. But the true faith asserts that God is born from
God, as light from light, which pours itself forth without
self-diminution, giving what it has yet having what it gave. It
asserts that by His birth He was what He is, for as He is so was He
born; that His birth was the gift of the existing Life, a gift which
did not lessen the store from which it was taken; and that They Two are
One, for He, from Whom He is born, is as Himself, and He that was born
has neither another source nor another nature, for He is Light from
Light. It is in order to draw men’s faith away from this,
the true doctrine, that 102this
lantern or lamp of Hieracas is cast in the teeth of those who confess
Light from Light. Because the phrase has been used in an
heretical sense, and condemned both now and in earlier days, they want
to persuade us that there is no true sense in which it can be
employed. Let heresy forthwith abandon these groundless fears,
and refrain from claiming to be the protector of the Church’s
faith on the score of a reputation for zeal earned so
dishonestly. For we allow nothing bodily, nothing lifeless, to
have a place among the attributes of God; whatever is God is perfect
God. In Him is nothing but power, life, light, blessedness,
Spirit. That nature contains no dull, material elements; being
immutable, it has no incongruities within it. God, because He is
God, is unchangeable; and the unchangeable God begat God. Their
bond of union is not, like that of two flames, two wicks of one lamp,
something outside Themselves. The birth of the Only-begotten Son
from God is not a prolongation in space, but a begetting; not an
extension779779 I.e. a line of
lights., but Light from
Light. For the unity of light with light is a unity of nature,
not unbroken continuation.

13. And again, what a wonderful example of
heretical ingenuity is this:—“Nor as if He were previously
in being, and afterwards born or created afresh, to be a
Son.” God, since He was born from God, was assuredly not
born from nothing, nor from things non-existent. His birth was
that of the eternally living nature. Yet, though He is God, He is
not identical with the pre-existing God; God was born from God Who
existed before Him; in, and by, His birth He partook of the nature of
His Source. If we are speaking words of our own, all this is mere
irreverence; but if, as we shall prove, God Himself has taught us how
to speak, then the necessity is laid upon us of confessing the Divine
birth in the sense revealed by God. And it is this unity of
nature in Father and in Son, this ineffable mystery of the living
birth, which the madness of heresy is struggling to banish from belief,
when it says, “Nor as if He were previously in being, and
afterwards born, or created afresh, to be a Son.” Now who
is senseless enough to suppose that the Father ceased to be Himself;
that the same Person Who had previously existed was afterwards born, or
created afresh, to be the Son? That God disappeared, and that His
disappearance was followed by an emergence in birth, when, in fact,
that birth is evidence of the continuous existence of its Author?
Or who is so insane as to suppose that a Son can come into existence
otherwise than through birth? Who so void of reason as to say
that the birth of God resulted in anything else than in God being
born? The abiding God was not born, but God was born from the
abiding God; the nature bestowed in that birth was the very nature of
the Begetter. And God by His birth, which was from God into God,
received, because His was a true birth, not things new-created but
things which were and are the permanent possession of God. Thus
it is not the pre-existent God that was born; yet God was born, and
began to exist, out of and with the properties of God. And thus
we see how heresy, throughout this long prelude, has been treacherously
leading up to this most blasphemous doctrine. Its object being to
deny God the Only-begotten, it starts with what purports to be a
defence of truth, to go on to the assertion that Christ is born not
from God but out of nothing, and that His birth is due to the Divine
counsel of creation from the non-existent.

14. And then again, after an interval
designed to prepare us for what is coming, their heresy delivers this
assault;—“While the Son, put forth outside time, and
created and established before the worlds, did not exist before He was
born.” This “He did not exist before He was
born” is a form of words by which the heresy flatters itself that
it gains two ends; support for its blasphemy, and a screen for itself
if its doctrine be arraigned. A support for its blasphemy,
because, if He did not exist before He was born, He cannot be of one
nature with His eternal Origin. He must have His beginning out of
nothing, if He have no powers but such as are coeval with His
birth. And a screen for its heresy, for if this statement be
condemned, it furnishes a ready answer. He that did exist, it
will be said, could not be born; being in existence already, He could
not possibly come into being by passing through the process of birth,
for the very meaning of birth is the entry into existence of the being
that is born. Fool and blasphemer! Who dreams of birth in
the case of Him Who is the unborn and eternal? How can we think
of God, Who is780780Exod. iii. 14., being born, when
being born implies the process of birth? It is the birth of God
the Only-begotten from God His Father that you are striving to
disprove, and it was your purpose to escape the confession of that
truth by means of this “He did not exist before He was
born;” the confession that God, from Whom the Son of God was
born, did 103exist eternally,
and that it is from His abiding nature that God the Son draws His
existence through birth. If, then, the Son is born from God, you
must confess that His is a birth of that abiding nature; not a birth of
the pre-existing God, but a birth of God from God the pre-existent.

15. But the fiery zeal of this heresy is
such that it cannot restrain itself from passionate outbreak. In
its effort to prove, in conformity with its assertion that He did not
exist before He was born, that the Son was born from the non-existent,
that is, that He was not born from God the Father to be God the Son by
a true and perfect birth, it winds up its confession by rising in rage
and hatred to the highest pitch of possible blasphemy:—“As
to such phrases as from Him, and from the womb, and I
went out from the Father and am come, if they be understood to
denote that the Father extends a part, and, as it were, a development
of that one substance, then the Father will be of a compound nature and
divisible and changeable and corporeal, according to them; and thus, as
far as their words go, the incorporeal God will be subjected to the
properties of matter.” The defence of the true faith
against the falsehoods of heresy would indeed be a task of toil and
difficulty, if it were needful for us to follow the processes of
thought as far as they have plunged into the depths of
godlessness. Happily for our purpose it is shallowness of thought
that has engendered their eagerness to blaspheme. And hence,
while it is easy to refute the folly, it is difficult to amend the
fool, for he will neither think out right conclusions for himself, nor
accept them when offered by another. Yet I trust that they who in
pious ignorance, not in wilful folly bred of self-conceit, are
enchained by error, will welcome correction. For our
demonstration of the truth will afford convincing proof that heresy is
nothing else than folly.

16. You said in your unreason, and you are
still repeating to-day, ignorant that your wisdom is a defiance of God,
“As to such phrases as from Him, and from the womb,
and I went out from the Father and am come,” I ask you,
Are these phrases, or are they not, words of God? They certainly
are His; and, since they are spoken by God about Himself, we are bound
to accept them exactly as they were spoken. Concerning the
phrases themselves, and the precise force of each, we shall speak in
the proper place. For the present I will only put this question
to the intelligence of every reader; When we see From Himself,
are we to take it as equivalent to “From some one else,” or
to “From nothing,” or are we to accept it as the
truth? It is not “From some one else,” for it is
From Himself; that is, His Godhead has no other source than
God. It is not “From nothing,” for it is From
Himself; a declaration of the nature from which His birth is.
It is not “Himself,” but From Himself; a statement
that They are related as Father and Son. And next, when the
revelation From the womb is made, I ask whether we can possibly
believe that He is born from nothing, when the truth of His birth is
clearly indicated in terms borrowed from bodily functions. It is
not because He has bodily members, that God records the generation of
the Son in the words, I bore Thee from the womb before the morning
star781781Psalm cix.
(cx.) 3.. He uses
language which assists our understanding to assure us that His
Only-begotten Son was ineffably born of His own true Godhead. His
purpose is to educate the faculties of men up to the knowledge of the
faith, by clothing Divine verities in words descriptive of human
circumstances. Thus, when He says, From the womb, He is
teaching us that His Only-begotten was, in the Divine sense, born, and
did not come into existence by means of creation out of nothing.
And lastly, when the Son said, I went forth from the Father and am
come, did He leave it doubtful whether His Divinity were, or were
not, derived from the Father? He went out from the Father; that
is, He had a birth, and the Father, and no other, gave Him that
birth. He bears witness that He, from Whom He declares that He
came forth, is the Author of His being. The proof and
interpretation of all this shall be given hereafter.

17. But meanwhile let us see what ground these men
have for the confidence with which they forbid us to accept as true the
utterances of God concerning Himself; utterances, the authenticity of
which they do not deny. What more grievous insult could be flung
by human folly and insolence at God’s self-revelation, than a
condemnation of it, shewn in correction? For not even doubt and
criticism will satisfy them. What more grievous than this profane
handling and disputing of the nature and power of God? Than the
presumption of saying that, if the Son is from God, then God is
changeable and corporeal, since He has extended or developed a part of
Himself to be His Son? Whence this anxiety to prove the
immutability of God? We confess the birth, we proclaim the
Only-begotten, for so God has taught us. You, in order to banish
the birth and the Only-begotten from the faith of the Church, confront
us with an unchangeable 104God,
incapable, by His nature, of extension or development. I could
bring forward instances of birth, even in natures belonging to this
world, which would refute this wretched delusion that every birth must
be an extension. And I could save you from the error that a being
can come into existence only at the cost of loss to that which begets
it, for there are many examples of life transmitted, without bodily
intercourse, from one living creature to another. But it would be
impious to deal in evidences, when God has spoken; and the utmost
excess of madness to deny His authority to give us a faith, when our
worship is a confession that He alone can give us life. For if
life comes through Him alone, must not He be the Author of the faith
which is the condition of that life? And if we hold Him an
untrustworthy witness concerning Himself, how can we be sure of the
life which is His gift?

18. For you attribute, most godless of
heretics, the birth of the Son to an act of creative will; you say that
He is not born from God, but that He was created and came into
existence by the choice of the Creator. And the unity of the
Godhead, as you interpret it, will not allow Him to be God, for, since
God remains One, the Son cannot retain His original nature in that
state into which He has been born. He has been endowed, through
creation, you say, with a substance different from the Divine,
although, being in a sense the Only-begotten, He is superior to
God’s other creatures and works. You say that He was raised
up, that He in His turn might perform the task committed to Him of
raising up the created world; but that His birth did not confer upon
Him the Divine nature. He was born, according to you, in the
sense that He came into existence out of nothing. You call Him a
Son, not because He was born from God, but because He was created by
God. For you call to mind that God has deemed even holy men
worthy of this title, and you consider that it is assigned to the Son
in exactly the same sense in which the words, I have said, Ye are
Gods, and all of you sons of the Most High782782Psalm
lxxxi. (lxxxii.) 6., were spoken; that is, that He bears
the name through the Giver’s condescension, and not by right of
nature. Thus, in your eyes, He is Son by adoption, God by gift of
the title, Only-begotten by favour, First-born in date, in every sense
a creature, in no sense God. For you hold that His generation was
not a birth from God, in the natural sense, but the beginning of the
life of a created substance.

19. And now, Almighty God, I first must pray Thee
to forgive my excess of indignation, and permit me to address Thee; and
next to grant me, dust and ashes as I am, yet bound in loyal devotion
to Thyself, freedom of utterance in this debate. There was a time
when I, poor wretch, was not; before my life and consciousness and
personality began to exist. It is to Thy mercy that I owe my
life; and I doubt not that Thou, in Thy goodness, didst give me my
birth for my good, for Thou, Who hast no need of me, wouldst never have
made the beginning of my life the beginning of evil. And then,
when Thou hadst breathed into me the breath of life and endowed me with
the power of thought, Thou didst instruct me in the knowledge of
Thyself, by means of the sacred volumes given us through Thy servants
Moses and the prophets. From them I learnt Thy revelation, that
we must not worship Thee as a lonely God. For their pages taught
me of God, not different from Thee in nature but One with Thee in
mysterious unity of substance. I learnt that Thou art God in God,
by no mingling or confusion but by Thy very nature, since the Divinity
which is Thyself dwells in Him Who is from Thee. But the true
doctrine of the perfect birth revealed that Thou, the Indwelt, and
Thou, the Indweller, are not One Person, yet that Thou dost dwell in
Him Who is from Thee. And the voices of Evangelists and Apostles
repeat the lesson, and the very words which fell from the holy mouth of
Thy Only-begotten are recorded, telling how Thy Son, God the
Only-begotten from Thee the Unbegotten God, was born of the Virgin as
man to fulfil the mystery of my salvation; how Thou dwellest in Him, by
virtue of His true generation from Thyself, and He in Thee, because of
the nature given in His abiding birth from Thee.

20. What is this hopeless quagmire of error into
which Thou hast plunged me? For I have learnt all this and have
come to believe it; this faith is so ingrained into my mind that I have
neither the power nor the wish to change it. Why this deception
of an unhappy man, this ruin of a poor wretch in body and soul, by
deluding him with falsehoods concerning Thyself? After the Red
Sea had been divided, the splendour on the face of Moses, descending
from the Mount, deceived me. He had gazed, in Thy presence, upon
all the mysteries of heaven, and I believed his words, dictated by
Thee, concerning Thyself. And David, the man that was found after
Thine own heart, has betrayed me to destruction, and Solomon, who was
thought worthy of the gift of Divine Wisdom, and Isaiah, who saw the
Lord of Sabaoth and prophesied, and Jeremiah consecrated in the womb,
before he was fashioned, 105to
be the prophet of nations to be rooted out and planted in, and Ezekiel,
the witness of the mystery of the Resurrection, and Daniel, the man
beloved, who had knowledge of times, and all the hallowed band of the
Prophets; and Matthew also, chosen to proclaim the whole
mystery783783 Reading
et ad omne. of the Gospel, first a publican, then
an Apostle, and John, the Lord’s familiar friend, and therefore
worthy to reveal the deepest secrets of heaven, and blessed Simon, who
after his confession of the mystery was set to be the foundation-stone
of the Church, and received the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and all
his companions who spoke by the Holy Ghost, and Paul, the chosen
vessel, changed from persecutor into Apostle, who, as a living man
abode under the deep sea784784 Cf. 2 Cor. xi. 25. and ascended
into the third heaven, who was in Paradise before his martyrdom, whose
martyrdom was the perfect offering of a flawless faith; all have
deceived me.

21. These are the men who have taught me the
doctrines which I hold, and so deeply am I impregnated with their
teaching that no antidote can release me from their influence.
Forgive me, O God Almighty, my powerlessness to change, my willingness
to die in this belief. These propagators of blasphemy, for so
they seem to me, are a product of these last times, too modern to avail
me. It is too late for them to correct the faith which I received
from Thee. Before I had ever heard their names, I had put my
trust in Thee, had received regeneration from Thee and become Thine, as
still I am. I know that Thou art omnipotent; I look not that Thou
shouldst reveal to me the mystery of that ineffable birth which is
secret between Thyself and Thy Only-begotten. Nothing is
impossible with Thee, and I doubt not that in begetting Thy Son Thou
didst exert Thy full omnipotence. To doubt it would be to deny
that Thou art omnipotent. For my own birth teaches me that Thou
art good, and therefore I am sure that in the birth of Thine
Only-begotten Thou didst grudge Him no good gift. I believe that
all that is Thine is His, and all that is His is Thine. The
creation of the world is sufficient evidence to me that Thou art wise;
and I am sure that Thy Wisdom, Who is like Thee, must have been
begotten from Thyself. And Thou art One God, in very truth, in my
eyes; I will never believe that in Him, Who is God from Thee, there is
ought that is not Thine. Judge me in Him, if it be sin in me
that, through Thy Son, I have trusted too well in Law and Prophets and
Apostles.

22. But this wild talk must cease; the rhetoric of
exposing heretical folly must give place to the drudgery of framing
arguments. So, I trust, those among them who are capable of being
saved will set their faces towards the true faith taught by the
Evangelists and Apostles, and recognise Him Who is the true Son of God,
not by adoption but by nature. For the plan of our reply must be
that of first proving that He is the Son of God, and therefore fully
endowed with that Divine nature in the possession of which His Sonship
consists. For the chief aim of the heresy, which we are
considering, is to deny that our Lord Jesus Christ is true God and
truly the Son of God. Many evidences assure us that our Lord
Jesus Christ is, and is revealed to be, God the Only-begotten, truly
the Son of God. His Father bears witness to it, He Himself
asserts it, the Apostles proclaim it, the faithful believe it, devils
confess it, Jews deny it, the heathen at His passion recognised
it. The name of God is given Him in the right of absolute
ownership, not because He has been admitted to joint use with others of
the title. Every work and word of Christ transcends the power of
those who bear the title of sons; the foremost lesson that we learn
from all that is most prominent in His life is that He is the Son of
God, and that He does not hold the name of Son as a title shared with a
widespread company of friends.

23. I will not weaken the evidence for this
truth by intermixing words of my own. Let us hear the Father,
when the baptism of Jesus Christ was accomplished, speaking, as often,
concerning His Only-begotten, in order to save us from being misled by
His visible body into a failure to recognise Him as the Son. His
words are:—This is My beloved Son, in Whom I am well
pleased785785 St. Matt. iii. 17.. Is the
truth presented here with dim outlines? Is the proclamation made
in uncertain tones? The promise of the Virgin birth brought by
the angel from the Holy Ghost, the guiding star of the Magi, the
reverence paid Him in His cradle, the majesty, attested by the Baptist,
of Him Who condescended to be baptized; all these are deemed an
insufficient witness to His glory. The Father Himself speaks from
heaven, and His words are, This is My Son. What means this
evidence, not of titles, but of pronouns? Titles may be appended
to names at will; pronouns are a sure indication of the persons to whom
they refer. And here we have, in This and My, the
clearest of indications. Mark the true meaning and the purpose of
the words. You have read, 106I have begotten sons, and have raised them
up786786Isai. i. 2.; but you did not read there My
sons, for He had begotten Himself those sons by division among the
Gentiles, and from the people of His inheritance. And lest we
should suppose that the name Son was given as an additional
title to God the Only-begotten, to signify His share by adoption in
some joint heritage, His true nature is expressed by the pronoun which
gives the indubitable sense of ownership. I will allow you to
interpret the word Son, if you will, as signifying that Christ
is one of a number, if you can furnish an instance where it is said of
another of that number, This is My Son. If, on the other
hand, This is My Son be His peculiar designation, why accuse the
Father, when He asserts His ownership, of making an unfounded
claim? When He says This is My Son, may we not paraphrase
His meaning thus:—“He has given to others the title of
sons, but He Himself is My own Son; I have given the name to multitudes
by adoption, but this Son is My very own. Seek not for another
lest you lose your faith that This is He. By gesture and by
voice, by This, and My, and Son, I declare Him to
you.” And now what reasonable excuse remains for lack of
faith? This, and nothing less than this, it was that the
Father’s voice proclaimed. He willed that we should not be
left in ignorance of the nature of Him Who came to be baptized, that He
might fulfil all righteousness; that by the voice of God we might
recognise as the Son of God Him Who was visible as Man, to accomplish
the mystery of our salvation.

24. And again, because the life of believers
was involved in the confession of this faith,—for there is no
other way to eternal life than the assurance that Jesus Christ, God the
Only-begotten, is the Son of God—the Apostles heard once more the
voice from heaven repeating the same message, in order to strengthen
this life-giving belief, in negation of which is death. When the
Lord, apparelled in splendour, was standing upon the Mountain, with
Moses and Elias at His side, and the three Pillars of the churches who
had been chosen as witnesses to the truth of the vision and the voice,
the Father spoke thus from heaven:—This is My beloved Son in
Whom I am well pleased; hear Him787787 St. Matt. xvii. 5..
The glory which they saw was not sufficient attestation of His majesty;
the voice proclaims, This is My Son. The Apostles cannot
face the glory of God; mortal eyes grow dim in its presence. The
trust of Peter and James and John fails them, and they are prostrate in
fear. But this solemn declaration, spoken from the Father’s
knowledge, comes to their relief; He is revealed as His Father’s
own true Son. And over and above the witness of This and
My to His true Sonship, the words are uttered, Hear
Him. It is the witness of the Father from heaven, in
confirmation of the witness borne by the Son on earth; for we are
bidden to hear Him. Though this recognition by the Father of the
Son removes all doubt, yet we are bidden also to accept the Son’s
self-revelation. When the Father’s voice commands us to
shew our obedience by hearing Him, we are ordered to repose an absolute
confidence in the words of the Son. Since, therefore, the Father
has manifested His will in this message to us to hear the Son, let us
hear what it is that the Son has told us concerning Himself.

25. I can conceive of no man so destitute of
ordinary reason as to recognise in each of the Gospels confessions by
the Son of the humiliation to which He has submitted in taking a body
upon Him,—as for instance His words, often repeated, Father,
glorify Me788788 St. John xvii. 5; cf. xiii. 32, xvi. 14, xvii.
1., and Ye
shall see the Son of Man789789 St. Matt. xxvi. 64., and The
Father is greater than I790790 St. John xiv. 28., and, more
strongly, Now is My soul troubled exceedingly791791Ib. xii.
27., and even this, My God, My God, why
hast Thou forsaken me792792 St. Matt. xxvii. 46.”? and many
more, of which I shall speak in due time,—and yet, in the face of
these constant expressions of His humility, to charge Him with
presumption because He calls God His Father, as when He says, Every
plant, which my heavenly Father hath not planted, shall be rooted
up793793Ib. xv.
13., or, Ye have made my Father’s
house an house of merchandise794794 St. John ii. 16.. I can
conceive of no one foolish enough to regard His assertion, consistently
made, that God is His Father, not as the simple truth sincerely stated
from certain knowledge, but as a bold and baseless claim. We
cannot denounce this constantly professed humility as an insolent
demand for the rights of another, a laying of hands on what is not His
own, an appropriation of powers which only God can wield. Nor,
when He calls Himself the Son, as in, For God sent not His Son into
this world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might
be saved795795Ib. iii.
17., and in, Dost
thou believe on the Son of God796796Ib. ix.
35.? can
we accuse Him of what would be an equal presumption with that of
calling God His Father. But what else is it than such an
accusation, if we allow to Jesus Christ the name of Son by adoption
only? Do we not 107charge Him, when He calls God His Father,
with daring to make a baseless claim? The Father’s voice
from heaven says Hear Him. I hear Him saying, Father, I
thank Thee797797 St. John xi. 41., and Say ye
that I blasphemed, because l said, I am the Son of God798798Ib. x.
36.? If I may not believe
these names, and assume that they mean what they assert, how am I to
trust and to understand? No hint is given of an alternative
meaning. The Father bears witness from heaven, This is My
Son; the Son on His part speaks of My Father’s house,
and My Father. The confession of that name gives
salvation, when faith is demanded in the question, Dost thou believe
on the Son of God? The pronoun My indicates that the
noun which follows belongs to the speaker. What right, I demand,
have you heretics to suppose it otherwise? You contradict the
Father’s word, the Son’s assertion; you empty language of
its meaning, and distort the words of God into a sense they cannot
bear. On you alone rests the guilt of this shameless blasphemy,
that God has lied concerning Himself.

26. And thus, although nothing but a sincere
belief that these names are truly significant,—that, when we
read, This is My Son and My Father, the words really
indicate Persons of Whom, and to Whom, they were spoken—can make
them intelligible, yet, lest it be supposed that Son and
Father are titles the one merely of adoption, the other merely
of dignity, let us see what are the attributes attached, by the Son
Himself, to His name of Son. He says, All things are delivered
Me of My Father, and no one knoweth the Son but the Father, neither
knoweth any the Father save the Son, and he to Whom the Son will reveal
Him799799 St. Matt. xi. 27.. Are the words of which we are
speaking, This is My Son and My Father, consistent, or
are they not, with No one knoweth the Son but the Father, neither
knoweth any the Father save the Son? For it is only by
witness mutually borne that the Son can be known through the Father,
and the Father through the Son. We hear the voice from heaven; we
hear also the words of the Son. We have as little excuse for not
knowing the Son, as we have for not knowing the Father. All
things are delivered unto Him; from this All there is no
exception. If They possess an equal might; if They share an equal
mutual knowledge, hidden from us; if these names of Father and Son
express the relation between Them, then, I demand, are They not in
truth what They are in name, wielders of the same omnipotence, shrouded
in the same impenetrable mystery? God does not speak in order to
deceive. The Fatherhood of the Father, the Sonship of the Son,
are literal truths. And now learn how facts bear out the verities
which these names reveal.

27. The Son speaks thus:—For the
works which the Father hath given Me to finish, the same works which I
do, bear witness of Me that the Father hath sent Me ; and the Father
Himself which hath sent Me hath borne witness of Me800800 St. John v. 36, 37.. God the Only-begotten proves His
Sonship by an appeal not only to the name, but to the power; the works
which He does are evidence that He has been sent by the Father.
What, I ask, is the fact which these works prove? That He was
sent. That He was sent, is used as a proof of His sonlike
obedience and of His Father’s authority: for the works
which He does could not possibly be done by any other than Him Who is
sent by the Father. Yet the evidence of His works fails to
convince the unbelieving that the Father sent Him. For He
proceeds, And the Father Himself which hath sent Me hath borne
witness of Me; and ye have neither heard His voice nor seen His
shape801801Ib. v.
37.. What was
this witness of the Father concerning Him? Turn over the pages of
the Gospels and review their contents. Read us other of the
attestations given by the Father beside those which we have heard
already; This is My beloved Son, in Whom I am well pleased, and Thou
art My Son. John, who heard these words, needed them not, for
He knew the truth already. It was for our instruction that the
Father spoke. But this is not all. John in the wilderness
was honoured with this revelation; the Apostles were not to be denied
the same assurance. It came to them in the very same words, but
with an addition which John did not receive. He had been a
prophet from the womb, and needed not the commandment, Hear
Him. Yes; I will hear Him, and will hear none but Him and His
Apostle, who heard for my instruction. Even though the books
contained no further witness, borne by the Father to the Son, than that
He is the Son, I have, for confirmation of the truth, the evidence of
His Father’s works which He does. What is this modern
slander that His name is a gift by adoption, His Godhead a lie, His
titles a pretence? We have the Father’s witness to His
Sonship; by works, equal to the Father’s, the Son bears witness
to His own equality with the Father. Why such blindness to His
obvious possession of the true Sonship which He both claims and
displays. It is not through condescending 108kindness on the part of God the Father
that Christ bears the name of Son; not by holiness that He has earned
the title, as many have won it by enduring hardness in confession of
the faith. Such sonship is not of right; it is by a favour,
worthy of Himself, that God bestows the title. But that which is
indicated by This, and My, and Hear Him, is
different in kind from the other. It is the true and real and
genuine Sonship.

28. And indeed the Son never makes for
Himself a lower claim than is contained in this designation, given Him
by His Father. The Father’s words, This is My Son,
reveal His nature; those which follow, Hear Him, are a summons
to us to listen to the mystery and the faith which He came down from
heaven to bring; to learn that, if we would be saved, our confession
must be a copy of His teaching. And in like manner the Son
Himself teaches us, in words of His own, that He was truly born and
truly came;—Ye neither know Me, nor know ye whence I am, for I
am not come of Myself, but He that sent Me is true, Whom ye know not,
but I know Him, for I am from Him, and He hath sent Me802802 St. John vii. 28, 29.. No man knows the Father; the Son
often assures us of this. The reason why He says that none knows
Him but Himself, is that He is from the Father. Is it, I ask, as
the result of an act of creation, or of a genuine birth, that He is
from Him? If it be an act of creation, then all created things
are from God. How then is it that none of them know the Father,
when the Son says that the reason why He has this knowledge is that He
is from Him? If He be created, not born, we shall observe in Him
a resemblance to other beings who are from God. Since all, on
this supposition, are from God, why is He not as ignorant of the Father
as are the others? But if this knowledge of the Father be
peculiar to Him, Who is from the Father, must not this circumstance
also, that He is from the Father, be peculiar to Him? That is,
must He not be the true Son born from the nature of God? For the
reason why He alone knows God is that He alone is from God. You
observe, then, a knowledge, which is peculiar to Himself, resulting
from a birth which also is peculiar to Himself. You recognise
that it is not by an act of creative power, but through a true birth,
that He is from the Father; and that this is why He alone knows the
Father, Who is unknown to all other beings which are from
Him.

29. But He immediately adds, For I am
from Him, and He hath sent Me, to debar heresy from the violent
assumption that His being from God dates from the time of His
Advent. The Gospel revelation of the mystery proceeds in a
logical sequence; first He is born, then He is sent. Similarly,
in the previous declaration, we were told of ignorance803803 Reading
nesciretur; cf. St. John vii. 28 in § 28., first as to Who He is, and then as to
whence He is. For the words, I am from Him, and He hath sent
Me, contain two separate statements, as also do the words, Ye
neither know Me, nor know ye whence I am. Every man is born
in the flesh; yet does not universal consciousness make every man
spring from God? How then can Christ assert that either He, or
the source of His being, is unknown? He can only do so by
assigning His immediate parentage to the ultimate Author of existence;
and, when He has done this, He can demonstrate their ignorance of God
by their ignorance of the fact that He is the Son of God. Let the
victims of this wretched delusion reflect upon the words, Ye neither
know Me, nor know ye whence I am. All things, they argue, are
from nothing; they allow of no exception. They even dare to
misrepresent God the Only-begotten as sprung from nothing. How
can we explain this ignorance of Christ, and of the origin of Christ,
on the part of the blasphemers? The very fact that, as the
Scripture says, they know not whence He is, is an indication of that
unknowable origin from which He springs. If we can say of a thing
that it came into existence out of nothing, then we are not ignorant of
its origin; we know that it was made out of nothing, and this is a
piece of definite knowledge. Now He Who came is not the Author of
His own being; but He Who sent Him is true, Whom the blasphemers know
not. He it was Who sent Him; and they know not that He was the
Sender. Thus the Sent is from the Sender; from Him Whom they know
not as His Author. The reason why they know not Who Christ is, is
that they know not from Whom He is. None can confess the Son who
denies that He was born; none can understand that He was born who has
formed the opinion that He is from nothing. And indeed He is so
far from being made out of nothing, that the heretics cannot tell
whence He is.

30. They are blankly ignorant who separate
the Divine name from the Divine nature; ignorant, and content to be
ignorant. But let them listen to the reproof which the Son
inflicts upon unbelievers for their want of this knowledge, when the
Jews said that God was their Father:—If God were your Father,
ye 109would surely love
Me; for I went forth from God, and am come; neither am I come of
Myself, but He sent Me804804 St. John viii. 42.. The
Son of God has here no word of blame for the devout confidence of those
who combine the confession that He is true God, the Son of God, with
their own claim to be God’s sons. What He is blaming is the
insolence of the Jews in daring to claim God as their Father, when
meanwhile they did not love Him, the Son:—If God were your
Father, ye would surely love Me; for I went forth from God.
All, who have God for their Father through faith, have Him for Father
through that same faith whereby we confess that Jesus Christ is the Son
of God. But to confess that He is the Son in a sense which covers
the whole company of saints; to say, in effect, that He is one of the
sons of God;—what faith is there in that? Are not all the
rest, feeble created beings though they be, in that sense sons?
In what does the eminence of a faith, which has confessed that Jesus
Christ is the Son of God, consist, if He, as one of a multitude of
sons, have the name only, and not the nature, of the Son? This
unbelief has no love for Christ; it is a mockery of the faith for these
perverters of the truth to claim God as their Father. If He were
their Father, they would love Christ because He had gone forth from
God. And now I must enquire the meaning of this going forth from
God. His going forth is obviously different from His coming, for
the two are mentioned side by side in this passage, I went forth
from God and am come. In order to elucidate the separate
meanings of I went forth from God and I am come, He
immediately subjoins, Neither am I come of Myself, but He sent
Me. He tells us that He is not the source of His own
existence in the words, Neither am I come of Myself. In
them He tells us that He has proceeded forth a second time from
God805805 i.e. in the
Incarnation., and has been sent by Him. But when
He tells us that they who call God their Father must love Himself
because He has gone forth from God, He makes His birth the reason for
their love. Went forth carries back our thoughts to the
incorporeal birth, for it is by love of Christ, Who was born from Him,
that we must gain the right of devoutly claiming God for our
Father. For when the Son says, He that hateth Me hateth My
Father also806806 St. John xv. 23., this My is
the assertion of a relation to the Father which is shared by
none. On the other hand, He condemns the man who claims God as
his Father, and loves not the Son, as using a wrongful liberty with the
Father’s name; since he who hates Him, the Son, must hate the
Father also, and none can be devoted to the Father save those who love
the Son. For the one and only reason which He gives for loving
the Son is His origin from the Father. The Son, therefore, is
from the Father, not by His Advent, but by His birth807807Nativitas
here, as normally in Hilary, means the eternal generation.; and love for the Father is only possible
to those who believe that the Son is from Him.

31. To this the Lord’s words bear
witness;—I will not say unto you that I will pray the Father
for you, for the Father Himself loveth you, because ye have loved Me,
and believe that I went forth from God, and am come from the Father
into this world808808 St. John xvi. 26–28.. A
complete faith concerning the Son, which accepts and loves the truth
that He went forth from God, has access to the Father without need of
His intervention. The confession that the Son was born and sent
from God wins for it direct audience and love from Him. Thus the
narrative of His birth and coming must be taken in the strictest and
most literal sense. I went forth from God, He says,
conveying that His nature is exactly that which was given Him by His
birth; for what being but God could go forth from God, that is, could
enter upon existence by birth from Him? Then He continues, And
am come from the Father into this world. To assure us that
this going forth from God means birth from the Father, He tells us that
He came from the Father into this world. The latter statement
refers to His incarnation, the former to His nature. And again,
His putting on record first the fact of His going forth from God, and
then His coming from the Father, forbids us to identify the going with
the coming. Coming from the Father, and going forth from God, are
not synonymous; they might be paraphrased as ‘Birth’ and
‘Presence,’ and are as different in meaning as these.
It is one thing to have gone forth from God, and entered by birth upon
a substantial existence; another to have come from the Father into this
world to accomplish the mysteries of our salvation.

32. In the order of our defence, as I have
arranged it in my mind, this has seemed the most convenient place for
proving that, thirdly809809 Firstly, the
Father’s witness is given in §§ 23–27; secondly,
the Son’s, §§ 28–31; thirdly, that of the
Apostles, §§ 32–46., the Apostles
believed our Lord Jesus Christ to be the Son of God, not merely in name
but in nature, not by adoption but by birth. 110It is true that there remain unmentioned
many and most weighty words of God the Only-begotten concerning
Himself, in which the truth of His Divine birth is set so clearly forth
as to silence any whisper of objection. Yet since it would be
unwise to burden the reader’s mind with an accumulation of
evidence, and ample proof has been already given of the genuineness of
His birth, I will hold back the remainder of His utterances till later
stages of our enquiry. For we have so arranged the course of our
argument that now, after hearing the Father’s witness and the
Son’s self-revelation, we are to be instructed by the
Apostles’ faith in the true and, as we must confess, the truly
born Son of God. We must see whether they could find in the words
of the Lord, I went forth from God, any other meaning than this,
that there was in Him a birth of the Divine nature.

33. After many dark sayings, spoken in
parables by Him Whom they already knew as the Christ foretold by Moses
and the Prophets, Whom Nathanael had confessed as the Son of God and
King of Israel, Who had Himself reproached Philip, in his question
about the Father, for not perceiving, by the works which He did, that
the Father was in Him and He in the Father; after He had already often
taught them that He was sent from the Father; still, it was not till
they had heard Him assert that He had gone forth from God that they
confessed, in the words which immediately follow in the
Gospel;—His disciples say unto Him, Now speakest Thou plainly,
and speakest no proverb. Now therefore we are sure that Thou
knowest all things, and needest not that any man should ask Thee; by
this we believe that Thou wentest forth from God810810 St. John xvi. 29, 30.. What was there so marvellous in this
form of words, Went forth from God, which He had used? Had
ye seen, O holy and blessed men, who for the reward of your faith have
received the keys of the kingdom of heaven and power to bind and to
loose in heaven and earth, works so great, so truly Divine, wrought by
our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God; and do ye yet profess that it
was not until He had first told you that He had gone forth from God
that ye attained the knowledge of the truth? And yet ye had seen
water at the marriage turned into the marriage wine; one nature
becoming another nature, whether it were by change, or by development,
or by creation. And your hands had broken up the five loaves into
a meal for that great multitude, and when all were satisfied ye had
found that twelve baskets were needed to contain the fragments of the
loaves; a small quantity of matter, in the process of relieving hunger,
had multiplied into a great quantity of matter of the same
nature. And ye had seen withered hands recover their suppleness,
the tongues of dumb men loosened into speech, the feet of the lame made
swift to run, the eyes of the blind endowed with vision, and life
restored to the dead. Lazarus, who stank already, had risen to
his feet at a word. He was summoned from the tomb and instantly
came forth, without a pause between the word and its fulfilment.
He was standing before you, a living man, while yet the air was
carrying the odour of death to your nostrils. I speak not of
other exertions of His mighty, His Divine powers. And is it, in
spite of all this, only after ye heard Him say, I went forth from
God, that ye understood Who He is that had been sent from
heaven? Is this the first time that the truth had been told you
without a proverb? The first time that the powers of His nature
made it manifest to you that He went forth from God? And this in
spite of His silent scrutiny of the purposes of your will, of His
needing not to ask you concerning anything as though He were ignorant,
of His universal knowledge? For all these things, done in the
power and in the nature of God, are evidence that He must have gone
forth from God.

34. By this the holy Apostles did not
understand that He had gone forth, in the sense of having been sent,
from God. For they had often heard Him confess, in His earlier
discourses, that He was sent; but what they hear now is the express
statement that He had gone forth from God. This opens their eyes
to perceive from His works His Divine nature. The fact that He
had gone forth from God makes clear to them His true Divinity, and so
they say, Now therefore we are sure that Thou knowest all things,
and needest not that any man should ask Thee; by this we believe that
Thou wentest forth from God. The reason why they believe that
He went forth from God is that He both can, and does, perform the works
of God. Their perfect assurance of His Divine nature is the
result of their knowledge, not that He is come from God, but that He
did go forth from God. Accordingly we find that it is this truth,
now heard for the first time, which clenches their faith. The
Lord had made two statements; I went forth from God, and I am
come from the Father into this world. One of these, I am
come from the Father into this world, they had often heard, and it
awakens no surprise. But their reply makes it manifest that they
now believe and understand the other, that is, I went
forth 111from
God. Their answer, By this we believe that Thou
wentest forth from God, is a response to it, and to it only; they
do not add, ‘And art come from the Father into this
world.’ The one statement is welcomed with a declaration of
faith; the other is passed over in silence. The confession was
wrung from them by the sudden presentation of a new truth, which
convinced their reason and constrained them to avow their
certainty. They knew already that He, like God, could do all
things; but His birth, which accounted for that omnipotence, had not
been revealed. They knew that He had been sent from God, but they
knew not that He had gone forth from God. Now at last, taught by
this utterance to understand the ineffable and perfect birth of the
Son, they confess that He had spoken to them without a
proverb.

35. For God is not born from God by the ordinary
process of a human childbirth; this is no case of one being issuing
from another by the exertion of natural forces. That birth is
pure and perfect and stainless; indeed, we must call it rather a
proceeding forth than a birth. For it is One from One; no
partition, or withdrawing, or lessening, or efflux, or extension, or
suffering of change, but the birth of living nature from living
nature. It is God going forth from God, not a creature picked out
to bear the name of God. His existence did not take its beginning
out of nothing, but went forth from the Eternal; and this going forth
is rightly entitled a birth, though it would be false to call it a
beginning. For the proceeding forth of God from God is a thing
entirely different from the coming into existence of a new
substance. And though our apprehension of this truth, which is
ineffable, cannot be defined in words, yet the teaching of the Son, as
He reveals to us that He went forth from God, imparts to it the
certainty of an assured faith.

36. A belief that the Son of God is Son in
name only and not in nature, is not the faith of the Gospels and of the
Apostles. If this be a mere title, to which adoption is His only
claim; if He be not the Son in virtue of having proceeded forth from
God, whence, I ask, was it that the blessed Simon Bar-Jona confessed to
Him, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God811811 St. Matt. xvi. 16.? Because He shared with all
mankind the power of being born as one of the sons of God through the
sacrament of regeneration? If Christ be the Son of God only in
this titular way, what was the revelation made to Peter, not by flesh
and blood, but by the Father in heaven? What praise could he
deserve for making a declaration which was universally
applicable? What credit was due to Him for stating a fact of
general knowledge? If He be Son by adoption, wherein lay the
blessedness of Peter’s confession, which offered a tribute to the
Son to which, in that case, He had no more title than any member of the
company of saints? The Apostle’s faith penetrates into a
region closed to human reasoning. He had, no doubt, often heard,
He that receiveth you receiveth Me, and He that receiveth Me
receiveth Him that sent Me812812 St. Matt. x. 40.. Hence he
knew well that Christ had been sent; he had heard Him, Whom he knew to
have been sent, making the declaration, All things are delivered
unto Me of the Father, and no one knoweth the Son but the Father,
neither knoweth any one the Father save the Son813813Ib. xi.
27.. What then is this truth, which
the Father now reveals to Peter, which receives the praise of a blessed
confession? It cannot have been that the names of
‘Father’ and ‘Son’ were novel to him; he had
heard them often. Yet he speaks words which the tongue of man had
never framed before:—Thou art the Christ, the Son of the
living God. For though Christ, while dwelling in the body,
had avowed Himself to be the Son of God, yet now for the first time the
Apostle’s faith had recognised in Him the presence of the Divine
nature. Peter is praised not merely for his tribute of adoration,
but for his recognition of the mysterious truth; for confessing not
Christ only, but Christ the Son of God. It would clearly have
sufficed for a payment of reverence, had he said, Thou art the
Christ, and nothing more. But it would have been a hollow
confession, had Peter only hailed Him as Christ, without confessing Him
the Son of God. And so his words Thou art814814 St. Hilary
takes them as an allusion to the I am (qui est) of
Exodus iii. 14.declare that what is asserted of Him is
strictly and exactly true to His nature. Next, the Father’s
utterance, This is My Son, had revealed to Peter that he must
confess Thou art the Son of God, for in the words This
is, God the Revealer points Him out, and the response, Thou
art, is the believer’s welcome to the truth. And this
is the rock of confession whereon the Church is built. But the
perceptive faculties of flesh and blood cannot attain to the
recognition and confession of this truth. It is a mystery,
Divinely revealed, that Christ must be not only named, but believed,
the Son of God. Was it only the Divine name; was it not rather
the Divine nature that was revealed to Peter? If it were the
name, he had 112heard it often
from the Lord, proclaiming Himself the Son of God. What honour,
then, did he deserve for announcing the name? No; it was not the
name; it was the nature, for the name had been repeatedly
proclaimed.

37. This faith it is which is the foundation
of the Church; through this faith the gates of hell cannot prevail
against her. This is the faith which has the keys of the kingdom
of heaven. Whatsoever this faith shall have loosed or bound on
earth shall be loosed or bound in heaven. This faith is the
Father’s gift by revelation; even the knowledge that we must not
imagine a false Christ, a creature made out of nothing, but must
confess Him the Son of God, truly possessed of the Divine nature.
What blasphemous madness and pitiful folly is it, that will not heed
the venerable age and faith of that blessed martyr, Peter himself, for
whom the Father was prayed that his faith might not fail in temptation;
who twice repeated the declaration of love for God that was demanded of
him, and was grieved that he was tested by a third renewal of the
question, as though it were a doubtful and wavering devotion, and then,
because this third trial had cleansed him of his infirmities, had the
reward of hearing the Lord’s commission, Feed My sheep, a
third time repeated; who, when all the Apostles were silent, alone
recognised by the Father’s revelation the Son of God, and won the
pre-eminence of a glory beyond the reach of human frailty by his
confession of his blissful faith! What are the conclusions forced
upon us by the study of his words? He confessed that Christ is
the Son of God; you, lying bishop of the new apostolate, thrust upon us
your modern notion that Christ is a creature, made out of
nothing. What violence is this, that so distorts the glorious
words? The very reason why he is blessed is that he confessed the
Son of God. This is the Father’s revelation, this the
foundation of the Church, this the assurance of her permanence.
Hence has she the keys of the kingdom of heaven, hence judgment in
heaven and judgment on earth. Through revelation Peter learnt the
mystery hidden from the beginning of the world, proclaimed the faith,
published the Divine nature, confessed the Son of God. He who
would deny all this truth and confess Christ a creature, must first
deny the apostleship of Peter, his faith, his blessedness, his
episcopate, his martyrdom. And when he has done all this, he must
learn that he has severed himself from Christ; for it was by confessing
Him that Peter won these glories.

38. Do you think, wretched heretic of today,
that Peter would have been the more blessed now, if he had said,
‘Thou art Christ, God’s perfect creature, His handiwork,
though excelling all His other works. Thy beginning was from
nothing, and through the goodness of God, Who alone is good, the name
of Son has been given Thee by adoption, although in fact Thou wast not
born from God?’ What answer, think you, would have been
given to such words as these, when this same Peter’s reply to the
announcement of the Passion, Be it far from Thee, Lord; this shall
not be, was rebuked with, Get thee behind Me, Satan, thou art an
offence unto Me815815 St. Matt. xvi. 22, 23.?
Yet816816 Omitting
nec. Peter could plead his human ignorance in
extenuation of his guilt, for as yet the Father had not revealed all
the mystery of the Passion; still, mere defect of faith was visited
with this stern condemnation. Now, why was it that the Father did
not reveal to Peter your true confession, this faith in an adopted
creature? I fancy that God must have grudged him the knowledge of
the truth; that He wanted to postpone it to a later age, and keep it as
a novelty for your modern preachers. Yes; you may have a change
of faith, if the keys of heaven are changed. You may have a
change of faith, if there is a change in that Church against which the
gates of hell shall not prevail. You may have a change of faith,
if there shall be a fresh apostolate, binding and loosing in heaven
what it has bound and loosed on earth. You may have a change of
faith, if another Christ the Son of God, beside the true Christ, shall
be preached. But if that faith which confesses Christ as the Son
of God, and that faith only, received in Peter’s person every
accumulated blessing, then perforce the faith which proclaims Him a
creature, made out of nothing, holds not the keys of the Church and is
a stranger to the apostolic faith and power. It is neither the
Church’s817817 Reading
ecclesiæ. faith, nor is it
Christ’s.

39. Let us therefore cite every example of a
statement of the faith made by an Apostle. All of them, when they
confess the Son of God, confess Him not as a nominal and adoptive Son,
but as Son by possession of the Divine nature. They never degrade
Him to the level of a creature, but assign Him the splendour of a true
birth from God. Let John speak to us, while he is waiting, just
as he is, for the coming of the Lord; John, who was left behind and
appointed to a destiny hidden in the counsel of God, for he is not told
that he shall not die, but only that he shall tarry. Let him
speak to us in his own familiar voice:—No one hath seen God
at 113any time, except
the Only-begotten Son, Which is in the bosom of the Father818818 St. John i. 18.. It seemed to him that the
name of Son did not set forth with sufficient distinctness His true
Divinity, unless he gave an external support to the peculiar majesty of
Christ by indicating the difference between Him and all others.
Hence he not only calls Him the Son, but adds the further designation
of the Only-begotten, and so cuts away the last prop from under
this imaginary adoption. For the fact that He is Only-begotten is
proof positive of His right to the name of Son.

40. I defer the consideration of the words,
which is in the bosom of the Father, to a more appropriate
place. My present enquiry is into the sense of
Only-begotten, and the claim upon us which that sense may
make. And first let us see whether the word mean, as you assert,
a perfect creature of God; Only-begotten being equivalent to
perfect, and Son a synonym for creature. But John
described the Only-begotten Son as God, not as a perfect
creature. His words, Which is in the bosom of the Father,
shew that he anticipated these blasphemous designations; and, indeed,
he had heard his Lord say, For God so loved the world that He gave
His Only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not
perish but have everlasting life819819Ib. iii.
16.. God,
Who loved the world, gave His Only-begotten Son as a manifest token of
His love. If the evidence of His love be this, that He bestowed a
creature upon creatures, gave a worldly being on the world’s
behalf, granted one raised up from nothing for the redemption of
objects equally raised up from nothing, this cheap and petty sacrifice
is a poor assurance of His favour towards us. Gifts of price are
the evidence of affection: the greatness of the surrender of the
greatness of the love. God, Who loved the world, gave not an
adopted Son, but His own, His Only-begotten. Here is personal
interest, true Sonship, sincerity; not creation, or adoption, or
pretence. Herein is the proof of His love and affection, that He
gave His own, His Only-begotten Son.

41. I appeal not now to any of the titles
which are given to the Son; there is no loss in delay when it is the
result of an embarrassing abundance of choice. My present
argument is that a successful result implies a sufficient cause; some
clear and cogent motive must underlie every effectual
performance. And so the Evangelist has been obliged to reveal his
motive in writing. Let us see what is the purpose which he
confesses;—But these things are written that ye may believe
that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God820820 St. John xx. 31.. The one reason which he alleges for
writing his Gospel is that all may believe that Jesus is the Christ,
the Son of God. If it be sufficient for salvation to believe that
He is the Christ, why does he add The Son of God? But if
the true faith be nothing less than the belief that Christ is not
merely Christ, but Christ the Son of God, then assuredly the name of
Son is not attached to Christ as a customary appendage due to adoption,
seeing that it is essential to salvation. If then salvation
consists in the confession of the name, must not the name express the
truth? If the name express the truth, by what authority can He be
called a creature? It is not the confession of a creature, but
the confession of the Son, which shall give us salvation.

42. To believe, therefore, that Jesus Christ
is the Son of God is true salvation, is the acceptable service of an
unfeigned faith. For we have no love within us towards God the
Father except through faith in the Son. Let us hear Him speaking
to us in the words of the Epistle;—Every one that loveth the
Father loveth Him that is born from Him8218211 John v. 1.. What, I ask, is the meaning of
being born from Him? Can it mean, perchance, being created by
Him? Does the Evangelist lie in saying that He was born from God,
while the heretic more correctly teaches that He was created? Let
us all listen to the true character of this teacher of heresy. It
is written, He is antichrist, that denieth the Father and the
Son822822Ib. ii.
22.. What will you do now, champion of
the creature, conjurer up of a novel Christ out of nothing? Hear
the title which awaits you, if you persist in your assertion. Or
do you think that perhaps you may still describe the Father and the Son
as Creator and Creature, and yet by an ingenious ambiguity of language
escape being recognised as antichrist? If your confession
embraces a Father in the true sense, and a Son in the true sense, then
I am a slanderer, assailing you with a title of infamy which you have
not deserved. But if in your confession all Christ’s
attributes are spurious and nominal, and not His own, then learn from
the Apostle the right description of such a faith as yours; and hear
what is the true faith which believes in the Son. The words which
follow are these;—He that denieth the Son, the same hath not
the Father: he that confesseth the Son hath both the Son and the
Father823823Ib.
23.. He that
denies the Son is destitute of the Father; he that confesses and has
the Son has the Father also. What room is there here for adoptive
names? Does not every word tell of the Divine nature? Learn
how completely that nature is present.

11443. John
speaks thus;—For we know that the Son of God is come, and was
incarnate for us, and suffered, and rose again from the dead and took
us for Himself, and gave us a good understanding that we may know Him
that is true, and may be in His true Son Jesus Christ. He is true
and is life eternal and our resurrection8248241 John v. 20, the long interpolation, which resembles
a creed, is only found twice elsewhere (Codex Toletanus and the
so-called Speculum of Augustine), and, though evidently from the Greek,
never in that language.. Wisdom doomed to an evil end,
void of the Spirit of God, destined to possess the spirit and the name
of Antichrist, blind to the truth that the Son of God came to fulfil
the mystery of our salvation, and unworthy in that blindness to
perceive the light of that sovereign knowledge! For this wisdom
asserts that Jesus Christ is no true Son of God, but a creature of His,
Who bears the Divine name by adoption. In what dark oracle of
hidden knowledge was the secret learnt? To whose research do we
owe this, the great discovery of the day? Were you he that lay
upon the bosom of the Lord? You he to whom in the familiar
intercourse of love He revealed the mystery? Was it you that
alone followed Him to the foot of the Cross? And while He was
charging you to receive Mary as your Mother, did He teach you this
secret, as the token of His peculiar love for yourself? Or did
you run to the Sepulchre, and reach it sooner even than Peter, and so
gain this knowledge there? Or was it amid the throngs of angels,
and sealed books whose clasps none can open, and manifold influences of
the signs of heaven, and unknown songs of the eternal choirs, that the
Lamb, your Guide, revealed to you this godly doctrine, that the Father
is no Father, the Son no Son, nor nature, nor truth? For you
transform all these into lies. The Apostle, by that most
excellent knowledge that was granted him, speaks of the Son of God as
true. You assert His creation, proclaim His adoption, deny His
birth. While the true Son of God is eternal life and resurrection
to us, for him, in whose eyes He is not true, there is neither eternal
life nor resurrection. And this is the lesson taught by John, the
disciple beloved of the Lord.

44. And the persecutor, who was converted to
be an Apostle and a chosen vessel, delivers the very same
message. What discourse is there of his which does not presuppose
the confession of the Son? What Epistle of his that does not
begin with a confession of that mysterious truth? When he says,
We were reconciled to God by the death of His Son825825Rom. v. 10., and, God sent His Son to be the
likeness of the flesh of sin8268261 John viii. 3., and again,
God is faithful, by Whom ye were called unto the fellowship of His
Son8278271 Cor. i. 9., is any loophole left for heretical
misrepresentation? His Son, Son of God; so we read, but
nothing is said of His adoption, or of God’s creature. The
name expresses the nature; He is God’s Son, and therefore the
Sonship is true. The Apostle’s confession asserts the
genuineness of the relation. I see not how the Divine nature of
the Son could have been more completely stated. That Chosen
Vessel has proclaimed in no weak or wavering voice that Christ is the
Son of Him Who, as we believe, is the Father. The Teacher of the
Gentiles, the Apostle of Christ, has left us no uncertainty, no opening
for error in his presentation of the doctrine. He is quite clear
upon the subject of children by adoption; of those who by faith attain
so to be and so to be named. in his own words, For as many as are
led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. For ye have
not received the spirit of bondage again unto fear, but ye have
received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba,
Father828828Rom. viii. 14, 15.. This is
the name granted to us, who believe, through the sacrament of
regeneration; our confession of the faith wins us this adoption.
For our work done in obedience to the Spirit of God gives us the title
of sons of God. Abba, Father, is the cry which we raise,
not the expression of our essential nature. For that essential
nature of ours is untouched by that tribute of the voice. It is
one thing for God to be addressed as Father; another thing for Him to
be the Father of His Son.

45. But now let us learn what is this faith
concerning the Son of God, which the Apostle holds. For though
there is no single discourse, among the many which he delivered
concerning the Church’s doctrine, in which he mentions the Father
without also making confession of the Son, yet, in order to display the
truth of the relation which that name conveys with the utmost
definiteness of which human language is capable, he speaks
thus:—What then? If God be for us, who can be against
us? Who spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for
us829829Ib.
31, 32.. Can Son, by any remaining
possibility, be a title received through adoption, when He is expressly
called God’s own Son? For the Apostle, wishing to make
manifest the love of God towards us, uses a kind of comparison, to
enable us to estimate how great that love is, when He says that it was
His own Son Whom God did not 115spare. He suggests the thought that
this was no sacrifice of an adopted Son, on behalf of those whom He
purposed to adopt, of a creature for creatures, but of His Son for
strangers, His own Son for those to whom He had willed to give a share
in the name of sons. Seek out the full import of the term, that
you may understand the extent of the love. Consider the meaning
of own; mark the genuineness of the Sonship which it
implies. For the Apostle now describes Him as God’s own
Son; previously he had often spoken of Him as God’s Son, or Son
of God. And though many manuscripts, through a want of
apprehension on the part of the translators, read in this passage
His Son, instead of His own Son, yet the original Greek,
the tongue in which the Apostle wrote, is more exactly rendered by
His own than by His830830 Yet His
own (proprius) is on the whole characteristic of the Old
Latin mss., still in existence. This
passage is important as indicating the independence of scribes.
Hilary seems to take it for granted that each will modify at his
discretion the text from which he is copying.. And
though the casual reader may discern no great difference between His
own and His, yet the Apostle, who in all his other
statements had spoken of His Son, which is, in the Greek,
τὸν
ἑαυτοῦ υἱ&
231·ν, in this passage uses the words ὅς
γε τοῦ
ἰδίου υἱοῦ
οὐκ
ἐφείσατο, that
is, Who spared not His own Son, expressly and emphatically
indicating His true Divine nature. Previously he had declared
that through the Spirit of adoption there are many sons; now his object
is to point to God’s own Son, God the Only-begotten.

46. This is no universal and inevitable
error; they who deny the Son cannot lay the fault upon their ignorance,
for ignorance of the truth which they deny is impossible. They
describe the Son of God as a creature who came into being out of
nothing. If the Father has never asserted this, nor the Son
confirmed it, nor the Apostles proclaimed it, then the dating which
prompts their allegation is bred not of ignorance, but of hatred for
Christ. When the Father says of His Son, This is831831 St. Matt. iii. 17, again an allusion to Exod. iii. 14., and the Son of Himself, It is He
that talketh with Thee832832 St. John ix. 37., and when Peter
confesses Thou art833833 St. Matt. xvi. 16; cf. Exod. iii. 14., and John
assures us, This is the true God8348341 John v. 20., and Paul is never weary of proclaiming
Him as God’s own Son, I can conceive of no other motive for this
denial than hatred. The plea of want of familiarity with the
subject cannot be urged in extenuation of their guilt. It is the
suggestion of that Evil One, uttered now through these prophets and
forerunners of his coming; he will utter it himself hereafter when he
comes as Antichrist. He is using this novel engine of assault to
shake us in our saving confession of the faith. His first object
is to pluck from our hearts the confident assurance of the Divine
nature of the Son; next, he would fill our minds with the notion of
Christ’s adoption, and leave no room for the memory of His other
claims. For they who hold that Christ is but a creature, must
regard Christ as Antichrist, since a creature cannot be God’s own
Son, and therefore He must lie in calling Himself the Son of God.
Hence also they who deny that Christ is the Son of God must have
Antichrist for their Christ.

47. What is the hope of which this futile
passion of yours is in pursuit? What is the assurance of your
salvation which emboldens you with blasphemous licence of tongue to
maintain that Christ is a creature, and not a Son? It was your
duty to know this mystery, from the Gospels, and to hold the knowledge
fast. For though the Lord can do all things, yet He resolved that
every one who prays for His effectual help must earn it by a true
confession of Himself. Not, indeed, that the suppliant’s
confession could augment the power of Him, Who is the Power of God; but
the earning was to be the reward of faith. So, when He asked
Martha, who was entreating Him for Lazarus, whether she believed that
they who had believed in Him should not die eternally, her answer
expressed the trust of her soul;—Yea, Lord, I believe that
Thou art the Christ, the Son of God, Who art come into this
world835835 St. John xi. 27.. This
confession is eternal life; this faith has immortality. Martha,
praying for her brother’s life, was asked whether she believed
this. She did so believe. What life does the denier expect,
from whom does he hope to receive it, when this belief, and this only,
is eternal life? For great is the mystery of this faith, and
perfect the blessedness which is the fruit of this
confession.

48. The Lord had given sight to a man blind from
his birth; the Lord of nature had removed a defect of nature.
Because this blind man had been born for the glory of God, that
God’s work might be made manifest in the work of Christ, the Lord
did not delay till the man had given evidence of his faith by a
confession of it. But though he knew not at the time Who it was
that had bestowed the great gift of eyesight, yet afterwards he earned
a knowledge of the faith. For it was not the dispelling of his
blindness that won him eternal life. And so, when the man was
already healed and had suffered 116ejection from the synagogue, the Lord put
to him the question, Dost thou believe on the Son of
God836836 St. John ix. 35.? This was to save him from the
thought of loss, in exclusion from the synagogue, by the certainty that
confession of the true faith had restored him to immortality.
When the man, his soul still unenlightened, made answer, Who is He,
Lord, that I may believe on Him837837Ib. ix.
36.? The
Lord’s reply was, Thou hast both seen Him, and it is He that
talketh with thee. For He was minded to remove the ignorance
of the man whose sight he had restored, and whom He was now enriching
with the knowledge of so glorious a faith. Does the Lord demand
from this man, as from others, who prayed Him to heal them, a
confession of faith as the price of their recovery? Emphatically
not. For the blind man could already see when he was thus
addressed. The Lord asked the question in order to receive the
answer, Lord, I believe838838Ib.
38.. The
faith which spoke in that answer was to receive not sight, but
life839839 Reading
vitam.. And now let us examine carefully
the force of the words. The Lord asks of the man, Dost thou
believe on the Son of God? Surely, if a simple confession of
Christ, leaving His nature in obscurity, were a complete expression of
the faith, the terms of the question would have been, ‘Dost thou
believe in Christ?’ But in days to come almost every
heretic was to make a parade of that name, confessing Christ and yet
denying that He is the Son; and therefore He demands, as the condition
of faith, that we should believe in what is peculiar to Himself, that
is, in His Divine Sonship. What is the profit of faith in the Son
of God, if it be faith in a creature, when He requires of us faith in
Christ, not the creature, but the Son, of God.

49. Did devils fail to understand the full
meaning of this name of Son? For we are valuing the heretics at
their true worth if we refute them no longer by the teaching of
Apostles, but out of the mouth of devils. They cry, and cry
often, What have I to do with Thee, Jesus, Thou Son of God most
High840840 St. Luke viii. 28.?
Truth wrung this confession from them against their will; their
reluctant obedience is a witness to the force of the Divine nature
within Him. When they fly from the bodies they have long
possessed, it is His might that conquers them; their confession of His
nature is an act of reverence. These transactions display Christ
as the Son of God both in power and in name. Can you hear, amid
all these cries of devils confessing Him, Christ once styled a
creature, or God’s condescension in adopting Him once
named?

50. If you will not learn Who Christ is from
those that know Him, learn it at least from those that know Him
not. So shall the confession, which their ignorance is forced to
make, rebuke your blasphemy. The Jews did not recognise Christ,
come in the body, though they knew that the true Christ must be the Son
of God. And so, when they were employing false witnesses, without
one word of truth in their testimony, against Him, their priest asked
Him, Art Thou the Christ, the Son of the Blessed841841 St. Mark xiv. 61.? They knew not that in Him
the mystery was fulfilled; they knew that the Divine nature was the
condition of its fulfilment. They did not ask whether Christ be
the Son of God; they asked whether He were Christ, the Son of
God. They were wrong as to the Person, not as to the Sonship, of
Christ. They did not doubt that Christ is the Son of God; and
thus, while they asked whether He were the Christ, they asked without
denying that the Christ is the Son of God. What, then, of your
faith, which leads you to deny what even they, in their blindness,
confessed? The perfect knowledge is this, to be assured that
Christ, the Son of God, Who existed before the worlds, was also born of
the Virgin. Even they, who know nothing of His birth from Mary,
know that He is the Son of God. Mark the fellowship with Jewish
wickedness in which your denial of the Divine Sonship has involved
you! For they have put on record the reason of their
condemnation:—And by our Law He ought to die, because He made
Himself the Son of God842842 St. John xix. 7.. Is not
this the same charge which you are blasphemously bringing against Him,
that, while you pronounce Him a creature, He calls Himself the
Son? He confesses Himself the Son, and they declare Him guilty of
death: you too deny that He is the Son of God. What
sentence do you pass upon Him? You have the same repugnance to
His claim as had the Jews. You agree with their verdict; I want
to know whether you will quarrel about the sentence. Your
offence, in denying that He is the Son of God, is exactly the same as
theirs, though their guilt is less, for they sinned in ignorance.
They knew not that Christ was born of Mary, yet they never doubted that
Christ must be the Son of God. You are perfectly aware of the
fact that Christ was born of Mary, yet you refuse Him the name of Son
of God. If they come to the faith, there awaits them an
un-imperilled salvation, because of their past 117ignorance. Every gate of safety is shut
to you, because you persist in denying a truth which is obvious to
you. For you are not ignorant that He is the Son of God; you know
it so well that you allow Him the name as a title of adoption, and
feign that He is a creature adorned, like others, with the right to
call Himself a Son. You rob Him, as far as you can, of the Divine
nature; if you could, you would rob Him of the Divine name as
well. But, because you cannot, you divorce the name from the
nature; He is called a Son, but He shall not be the true Son of
God.

51. The confession of the Apostles, for whom
by a word of command the raging wind and troubled sea were restored to
calm, was an opportunity for you. You might have confessed, as
they did, that He is God’s true Son; you might have borrowed
their very words, Of a truth, this is the Son of God843843 St. Matt. xiv. 33.. But an evil spirit of madness is
driving you on to shipwreck of your life; your reason is distracted and
overwhelmed, like the ocean tormented by the fury of the
storm.

52. If this witness of the voyagers seem
inconclusive to you because they were Apostles,—though to me it
comes with the greater weight for the same reason, though it surprises
me the less,—accept at any rate a corroboration given by the
Gentiles. Hear how the soldier of the Roman cohort, one of the
stern guard around the Cross, was humbled to the faith. The
centurion sees the mighty workings of Christ’s power; and this is
the witness borne by him:—Truly this was the Son of
God844844 St. Matt. xxvii. 54.. The truth was forced upon him,
after Christ had given up the ghost, by the torn veil of the Temple,
and the earth that shook, and the rocks that were rent, and the
sepulchres that were opened, and the dead that rose. And it was
the confession of an unbeliever. The deeds that were done
convinced him that Christ’s nature was omnipotent; he names Him
the Son of God, being assured of His true Divinity. So cogent was
the proof, so strong the man’s conviction, that the force of
truth conquered his will, and even he who had nailed Christ to the
Cross was driven to confess that He is the Lord of eternal glory, truly
the Son of God.

8241 John v. 20, the long interpolation, which resembles
a creed, is only found twice elsewhere (Codex Toletanus and the
so-called Speculum of Augustine), and, though evidently from the Greek,
never in that language.

830 Yet His
own (proprius) is on the whole characteristic of the Old
Latin mss., still in existence. This
passage is important as indicating the independence of scribes.
Hilary seems to take it for granted that each will modify at his
discretion the text from which he is copying.